Full

It seems like looking out the window on the top of a double decker bus at the snow covered ground along the highway and the gray trees that blur together in the dark is the perfect time to listen to Bon Iver. I haven't listened to this band in awhile. I love the rugged, strumming and Justin Vernon's soulfull falseto and the way his voice breaks in a way that almost makes you want to cry. It's  incredibly sad music, but it never makes me sad. Maybe because it's moving and true, and what's sad about that?

Earlier today I had this feeling in church that I was right where I'm supposed to be, sitting in s wooden chair in the National Cathedral next to my brother listening to the these crystal voices singing an anthem by William Byrd, something clear and brilliant and ethereal. I don't know what to call it, that feeling. Joy, maybe? It felt like being full, being whole, and like something was breaking my heart a little, like the music of Bon Iver does and that scene at the end of Where the Wild Things Are when all te monsters are crying because the little boy is leaving.

That's what I want from my art, the same thing I want from my religion: something that fills me up and then cracks my heart wide open.